Solar photovoltaic generation has demonstrated cost effective power production that is now comparable to grid costs. Solar thermal collectors demonstrate high efficiency with regard to producing high grade heat that is useful directly for heating, cooling via absorption chillers, and storage. Applications include both residential and industrial scale systems.
However, large scale adoption of solar energy is limited in part by the ability to store the energy. Therefore, techniques for generating, using, and storing both electricity and thermal energy in a single system would be desirable.